History of Kalamazoo county, Michigan, Part 21

Author: Durant, Samuel W. comp
Publication date: 1880
Publisher: Philadelphia. Everts & Abbott
Number of Pages: 761

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" I may have written you that Rix Robinson succeeded me; if so, it was a mistake. I succeeded him; who succeeded me, if any one, I cannot say.

"7. 'How many persons (whites) were at Chicago when you first visited it ?'

"Outside of Fort Dearborn there was Mr. John Kinzie and his family, wife, a daughter of Mrs. K. by her first husband, Mrs. Helm, two sons, and two daughters, of whom there is now living but one,- Mrs. Gen. David Hunter, of Washington City. He occupied a long log cabin ; a cultivated family, generous and hospitable. There was another log cabin occupied by Antoine Autmett, who had an Indian wife. A trading-house near Bridgeport, on South Branch, occupied by Pierre Crofts, an opposition trade for Conant, of Detroit, with four or five Canadian men. These composed the white citizens. Fort Dearborn was occupied by one company. The names of the officers at that time I cannot give you, but which you can get from the War Department. None of them had wives. They were a contented, jolly set. They sent two soldiers to Fort Wayne (nearest post-office) once a month, carrying mail on their backs.

"8. 'How many Indians have you seen assembled at one time ?'

"On several occasions I have seen from five thousand to six thou- sand assembled. At Kalamazoo, while a trader there, I have enter- tained twenty to forty.

"9. 'Were you present at the treaty held at Chicago by Gen. Cass when lands were ceded ?'

"I was present here in 1828 and 1830 at the treaties held by Gov- . ernor Cass, and at Tippecanoe in 1832, held by Jenkins and others. At all these treaties from five thousand to six thousand Indians were assembled.

"10. 'What was Detroit when you first visited it, and whose ac- quaintance did you form ?'

"My first visit to Detroit was in the fall of 1828. I went alone on horseback from Chicago, following the Sack trail; I passed one house (Bailey's) near Michigan City, one at White Pigeon, a trader's house at Coldwater, and the next one at Ypsilanti. I should say Detroit had a population of about one thousand. I made the acquaintance of

OCCUPATION BY THE WHITES.

most of the principal men,-Gen. Cass and family, De Garmo Jones, Oliver Newberry, Maj. Robert Forsyth, Abbott, Brewster, C. C. Trow- bridge, Judge Sibley, and quite a number of others. I returned in the schooner ' Napoleon' on her first trip. She was commanded by Blake, being then the largest vessel that had navigated Lake Mich- igan.

"G. S. HUBBARD."*

From this letter it would seem that Mr. Robinson must have been a trader at Kalamazoo previous to 1820, and he was there again in 1824 by his own showing.

The Mr. Laframboin, mentioned by Mr. Hubbard as being the first trader at Kalamazoo, must have preceded Robinson ; and the Numaiville, or Lumaiville, mentioned by Campau and Robinson, was probably earlier still.

Mr. Campau's statement would convey the understand- ing that a post was established here soon after the war of 1812-15. It is likely that all the posts were at the same locality, and it may be that there were seasons during which no white man visited the place. The earliest traders may have made use of tents, and the first " little trading-hut," as stated by Mr. Robinson, may have been the one erected by Numaiville in the fall of 1823. Mr. Hubbard gives no intimation of the character of the building occupied either by Robinson or himself in 1820, and we are forced to the conjecture that previous to that date they either made use of tents, Indian wigwams, or bark huts.

The following additional information concerning Hon. Rix Robinson is mainly contributed by Mr. A. D. P. Van Buren, of Galesburg :

Rix Robinson left his home at Auburn, N. Y., for the frontier, in 1814. He had recently finished an academic course, and was then near the close of a course of law studies which would have admitted him to the bar as a practicing attorney.

An incident of a personal character determined him to abandon the profession for the rough life of the frontiersman.

He accordingly made his way to Buffalo, then recently destroyed by the British, and from thence, after a passage of twenty-six days, to Detroit, where he became a partner with a Mr. Phelps, sutler to the United States garrison at that post. His father had paid him one thousand dollars in specie upon his leaving home, and this sum he invested in the business, in which he continued for a period of two years, sometimes at Detroit, at other times among the fron- tier posts and Indians. At the end of the two years he withdrew, receiving, as his share of profit and loss, one hundred dollars in money, and two thousand five hundred dollars in notes, only one of which, given by Michael Dous- man, of Mackinac, proved of value.

With his available funds he purchased a small stock of tobacco in St. Louis, and sold it to advantage to the Indians, among whom he now resolved to set up business on his own account. He accordingly established trading-stations, first at Calumet, in Northeastern Illinois, in 1817, among the Pot- tawattomies and Kickapoos ; then in succession at a point on the Illinois River, twenty-five miles above its mouth, in 1819 ; at Milwaukee, Wis., in 1820; at the mouth of Grand River, Mich., in 1821; and, according to Mr. Hubbard, at Kalamazoo at a still earlier date. He also had trading-posts

at Ada, twenty or thirty miles above Grand Rapids, and at other places. His post at Ada was his principal one.t

His earlier purchases of goods and sales of furs were made in St. Louis. His goods were transported by canoes and barges via the lake and the Illinois and Mississippi Rivers, making the portage from the waters of the Illinois River to Lake Michigan with great labor and delay. When Mackinac became the principal depot of the American Fur Company for the Northwestern lakes, he transferred his patronage thither on account of greater convenience and smaller expense. The business with Mackinac was carried on by means of bateaux, until the use of large sail craft superseded them.

In the long course of his dealings with the Indians, Mr. Robinson learned their language so thoroughly that he might with truth have appropriated the statement made by Charlevoix, when speaking of Capt. Le Jonquiere, a noted interpreter of the days of the old French war of 1755-60 : He spoke the Indian language " avec la plus sublime elo- quence l' Iroquoise." This perfect command of the native tongue made him immensely popular with his copper-colored friends, and was of great advantage to him in his business relations with them. They looked upon him, as of old the Six Nations looked upon Sir William Johnson, as one superior to the common grade of white men.

It is said the Indians had three varieties of language,- one for chiefs or rulers, one for warriors and hunters, and one used exclusively by the women.}

Another peculiarity of their language was its lack of vulgar expletives ; it had no equivalent for profanity in English. This may account for the fact that an Indian will learn the profane portion of the common vernacular before any other, partly, no doubt, because of its novelty, and partly on account of its greater vigor of expression, and its adaptability to the guttural manner of expression so common among the savages.

Mr. Robinson, in addition to his remarkable knowledge of the Indian language, possessed a dignified and command- ing presence, an even temper, and cultivated a just and equitable discrimination in all his dealings. These virtues added to his renown among the tribes, and gave him an in- fluence for good to which may primarily be ascribed the ready welcome and kind treatment with which they received the first white people who settled in their vicinity.

This noted trader, after the abandonment of his original occupation in Michigan, about 1837, settled permanently at

t He had posts at Manistee, Pere Marquette, Muskegon, Clay Bank, one up the Muskegon River, one at the mouth of the Kalamazoo River, on North and South Black River, at St. Joseph, and one up the St. Joseph River.

į In 1822, Rev. Isaac McCoy established a mission for the benefit of the Pottawattomies, at the place now occupied by the city of Niles ; and soon after, by the aid of Governor Cass, he opened a second school at Grand Rapids. In 1826 the Rev. Leonard Slater joined Mr. Mc- Coy, and was placed in charge of the mission at Grand Rapids, where he also frequently acted as interpreter. It chanced that his first knowledge of the Indian tongue was learned among the squaws. Upon his first attempt to translate English into Indian he used the language of the women. The Indians listened patiently until he had concluded, when, after a proper time, one arose and said, "If you came here to talk with men, why don't you use the tongue of a man, and not speak to us the words of a woman ?" Mr. Slater died in Kal- amazoo in 1866.

* Mr. Hubbard is at this date, November, 1879, still living in Chicago at an advanced age.

HISTORY OF KALAMAZOO COUNTY, MICHIGAN.

Ada, in Kent County, where he became a prominent and in- fluential citizen, filling various offices of trust and responsibil- ity, among others that of member of the Legislature, serving in the State Senate in the years 1846, 1847, 1848, and 1849. He died at Ada, Kent Co., in 1875, at about the age of eighty-two years.

His intelligence, and the purity of private life which dis- tinguished him above the ordinary class of " traders," gave him prominence when civilization became dominant in the West, and his name stands well among those who have occupied important and honorable positions in the civil government of the State. With inflexible integrity and untiring assiduity he nobly fulfilled every trust reposed in him, and died, as he had lived, " without fear and without reproach."

Besides Robinson and Hubbard there were several other traders stationed at Kalamazoo, either as employees of these, or traders on their own account. Among them were Re- collet, Peter Coteau, and one Leiphart. A melancholy incident in connection with this post is given in the history of Kalamazoo, published in the county directory in 1870, which we transcribe :

"Recollet, one of the oldest of the traders at this point, had two daughters, who, as they grew up, became more the pride and idols of his heart. Year after year they unfolded new graces and new beau- ties, and made the wilderness a merry place with their ringing voices and inextinguishable happiness. Like the waters of the Ke-Kena- mazoo they loved so much, the current of their lives flowed sweetly, smoothly on. Fearless as Indian braves, lithe and sinewy as the wild deer, tireless as eagles, and sure-footed as the scout, there was not a nook, hillside, or streamlet for miles around which they did not ex- plore; not a spring, lake, or meadow brook but returned their mock- ing glances, laved their Camillian feet, or bubbled up fresh breakers to kiss their thirsty lips. But at last the time came when the father, who had long wrestled with the thought of separation, yielded to what he believed to be his duty, and determined that they should be educated, and fitted for a better life,-for he held ' the gray barbarian lower than the Christian child.' He went with them to Montreal and placed them in a convent. They were permitted twice to revisit their old home, and finally, their education completed, they started once more homeward. But they were destined never to tread the old familiar hills. While on a brief visit to Mackinac, they were both drowned, the boat in which they were enjoying an excursion, being overturned by a sudden storm. When the sad tidings at length reached the aged father, he became like one who, by a sudden stroke, is deprived of all hope or comfort. He remained here but a little time afterwards, and disappeared, none knew whither."

The stock in trade of these frontier posts, brought from Detroit on pack-horses through the wilderness which then covered the lower peninsula, or in bateaux from Detroit and Mackinac, consisted of ammunition, tobacco, blankets, clothing, beads, hats and caps, steel traps, spears, hooks, a small assortment of boots and shoes, and a generous supply of the white man's " fire-water," which latter article was deemed by the Indians, next to ammunition, the most essential of all, though it proved the greatest curse that ever spread its baneful influence over a savage people. The traders also ventured to dispose of a few rifles and shot-guns occa- sionally, and this traffic became so considerable, even before the war of 1812, that at the breaking out of hostilities many of the Indian tribes were principally armed with the deadly weapons of the white man.

Sometimes extensive traders, such as Louis Campau, sold ponies to the Indians. The principal articles of exchange

possessed by them were furs and skins. Many of the traders amassed fortunes, and nearly all wielded a wonderful influence over the savages. Occasionally they married In- dian women, and adopted, more or less, the habits and cus- toms of the children of the forest. Many of the traders, like Robinson and Campau, continued their business for several years after the white settlers began to come in, and enlarged their trade to accommodate the increased demand.

In speaking of the trading-post at Kalamazoo, the writer before quoted discourses as follows :

" There is much interest attached to the old trading-post on the Kalamazoo River at this place, though now (1869) there are only a few logs to mark its old foundations and associations with primitive days in the memories of the earliest settlers.

" The grounds upon which it stood, and from whence a most beau- tiful view of the river and valley is obtained, are now within the in- closure of the RIVERSIDE CEMETERY. From the hills above it the first glimpses of this lovely valley and its fair surroundings met the eyes of the earliest pioneers. In May, 1826, a young missionary, on his way to the Carey mission, on the St. Joseph River, there to begin a life-work of teaching the gospel to the Indians, arrived at the summit of the hill which rose before the entrance of the old post. It was near nightfall, and, tired with his long tramp upon the trail, he stopped, laid down his knapsack and staff, prepared for rest, and was not long in finding ' tired nature's sweet restorer-balmy sleep.' In the morning he arose and pursued his journey, but the glorious scene which met his gaze as he turned it westward was never effaced from his mind, and years after, when he knew he must soon rest from life's pilgrimage, he desired that the spot where he halted on that May eve- ning should be his resting-place. And there Leonard Slater sleeps, after forty years' devotion to his Master's cause.

"The surroundings of the place are, both by nature and association, in a high degree romantic. It is the ground upon which many a scene of love, prowess, council, and battle was enacted. It was the home and the burial-place of the most famous of the Indian chiefs. It was here the trails all met for the river crossing, and for some time it was the fording-place of the pioneers, until Nate Harrison's ferry was started, in 1832, which enjoyed a busy and eventful career until 1835.

" The boys used to have a good deal of fun at the post, when this colony was small, and there was no public opinion to regulate its morals. There are still living here (1869) some of that merry crew who delighted to go down to the post, worry ' old Reckly,'* drink his whisky, hold 'buayaws,' and have a good time generally. On one occasion, after being repeatedly tormented, the old Frenchman, seeing his friends approaching, barred his doors and refused them access. The boys made a vigorous attack, but vain were all their efforts to effect an entrance. Finally, they accomplished by strategy what they could not compass by force. One of them mounted the roof, crept to the chimney, and, by the aid of his companions, closed the aperture completely. Then they patiently waited the result. The Frenchman held out as long as possible, but finally succumbed, opening his door, rubbing his tearful eyes, and cursing with many sacr-r-es and like expletives, having been literally smoked out."t

* Recollet.

t In addition to what has already been said of the early trading- posts, we append the following, compiled from information furnished by Dr. Foster Pratt :

Rix Robinson was an agent of the American Fur Company, at the head of which was John Jacob Astor, of New York. In 1823 or 1824, Mr. Robinson bought out the Frenchman, Numaiville, as is shown by the books of the American Fur Company, at Mackinac, which Dr. Pratt examined, and from which it would appear that Numaiville was either doing business on his own capital, or as an agent of the British Hudson's Bay Company, most probably the latter. The invoice of the Frenchman's goods was charged on the company's books to Rob- inson, and the furs brought in by him were credited to him. He afterwards, probably, engaged in the business on his own account.

About the 1st of December, 1879, an aged gentleman named Meacham, from Cass Co., Mich., was interviewed at the Burdick House, in Kalamazoo, by Dr. Pratt. The old man, who was remarkably pre-

OCCUPATION BY THE WHITES.

SETTLEMENTS.

The earliest settlements of the county of Kalamazoo were made on Prairie Ronde, within the present limits of the town of Prairie Ronde, in November, 1828, by Bazel Har- rison ; in Kalamazoo, in June, 1829, by Titus Bronson ; in Comstock, by William Toland, in the fall of 1829; in Oshtemo and Texas, in the same year; in Portage, in 1830 ; in Richland, on Gull Prairie, by Col. Isaac Barnes, in May, 1830 ; and in Ross and Charleston, in 1831.

In this connection we insert some admirable sketches of the " pioneer" days by A. D. P. Van Buren, Esq., a pro- lific and interesting writer, and one " who knows whereof he affirms." They have mostly been published in the Bat- tle Creek and Kalamazoo papers, and are well worthy of preservation in the history of the county :

" GOING WEST.

" Nowadays the old, slow-moving, unobtrusive canal-boat, gliding along its narrow, watery way, attracts no attention. But behold what a sensation that railway train creates, as it flies with the speed of the wind, from city to city, through hamlet and over farm-land ! The one is an emblem that represents the good old times past. The other is an emblem that represents this fast, stirring, noisy age of ours. There was a charm about that old canal-boat,-that migratory home, that took you, your family, and your household goods, boarded and lodged you, and carried you safely and at a very reasonable charge from Albany to Buffalo. That unpretending ' old liner,' into which, like muskrats, you must dive for ingress, was yet found pleas- ant and homelike within. . The captain was your landlord, and a most companionable gentleman. His wife, or a matron in charge, was your landlady, who understood the rare art of entertaining her guests, and making you feel at ease and at home. There you were domiciled, and felt as secure and happy as at a way-side inn ; only you were going abroad in it, and secured the delights of travel, not to be enjoyed afoot or on wheels. And you had this with none of the dangers that often haunt you in modern railway travel. You had only to take care of yourself, and enjoy the society of your fellow- passengers and the panoramic views of the country that were in all their varied beauty, long drawn out. This was the mode of travel that gave you the most of the country, the most safety, and the cheapest fare. It was full as safe and as cheap as to stay at home. If tired of riding, you could spring from the boat to the tow-path, where you could hunt, ramble, or ransack in the woods to your heart's content. Although De Witt Clinton was at first ridiculed for his efforts in carrying out the Dutch idea of travel in this country, yet who shall say how much ' his ditch' contributed towards settling the great un- known West ?

" It was the only available mode of travel for the emigrant to the West at that time. A strong man could walk, but his family and his household goods, how was he to transport them to this far country ? To fit out an emigrant wagon was too expensive, and the way was too untried and too long. At this time traveling on the Erie canal-boat was found commodious and cheap, and the emigrants could take all they wanted to start new homes with in the wild regions they were going to. Hence, really, on ' Clinton's ditch'-

' Westward the course of empire took its way,'

and soon the log house, then the thriving settlement, the busy village, the crowded city, and the great State arose where late there was but an unbroken wilderness. How much Michigan is indebted to the magic potency that laid concealed in those four words, 'The old Erie Canal,' who can tell ? Could those ' old liners' speak, what histories

served, stated that he crossed the ford on the Kalamazoo River in January, 1827, and there was then a single white man's building in the valley, and that was the little trading house (built partly of logs and partly of bark) in which he found the Frenchman, Numaiville, engaged in the fur trade. He located the cabin near the ferry, and on ground now included in the southwest corner of the Riverside Cemetery. Numaiville was undoubtedly at that date in the employ of Robinson.

they could relate! Like the ' boat of Æneas,' the ' May Flower' of the Pilgrims, the ' Half Moon' of Hendrick Hudson, their mission was to carry adventurers forth to plant colonies in a new land.

" My parents, a sister and myself, with the household effects that were deemed essential for our future purposes, on the 1st of October, 1836, left our home at New York Mills, Oneida Co., N. Y., and took passage at Yorkville, one-half mile distant, in the line boat ' Magnet,' on the Erie Canal, for Buffalo. As we left, we heard the whistle of the locomotive, at Utica, two miles east. Railway travel in New York was completed to that city at that time ; the next time we heard that ' whistle' it was in 1845, in the young and picturesque village of Kala- mazoo, Mich. One week's travel on the Erie Canal brought us to Buffalo. Here, taking a new and staunch steamer, 'United States,' we made a speedy trip up the lake to Detroit. The boat was crowded with people, mostly emigrants, from various parts of the East, bound to various points in the West. Each emigrant family had with them all the essential paraphernalia for starting new homes in a new land.

" My father and his son-in-law, Edwin Dickinson, had the year previous visited Michigan, and after making a purchase of lands, re- turned. Two of my brothers, Martin and Ephraim, had preceded us, going in the spring of 1836 to erect a log house on the new land for the family, who were to come in the fall. That time had now arrived, and as we stepped off the steamer at Detroit, we found Ephraim, who had come in from Milton, Calhoun Co., one hundred and twenty-five miles distant, with two yoke of oxen before a lumber-wagon, to take the family and their goods to the new home.

"In August, 1679, De La Salle and Louis Hennepin, French ex- plorers, discovered a large village of the Hurons, called Teuchsagronde, covering part of the ground where Detroit now stands .* M. de La Motte Cadillac built a fort, a stockade of wooden pickets, in July, 1701, on the same spot. But this was not discovering Michigan. The French Jesuits touched at Detroit and Mackinac a century or more ago, with one eye on the red man, as a means of establishing their religion in the remote West, and the other on his furs, or any other commodity the Indian had to offer. Yet it was not till 1824 or 1828 that Mich- igan was really discovered. Previous to that time, says Judge Holmes, of Newark, Ohio, ' All back of Detroit was considered a swamp. I know, for I was one of the government surveyors, and could not survey it except in the winter on the ice.'

"These reports, started by the old surveyors, were caught up and circulated by designing speculators, through their agents, stationed at Buffalo, Erie, Cleveland, Toledo, Detroit, and other points on the lakes where they could reach emigrants going west, their object being to divert the tide of emigration from Michigan and turn it to Northern Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, or to any point where they had lands, and hence an interest in having a settlement made.

" Many of the emigrants, as they arrived at any of the above places, were waylaid by these ' tutored barbarians,' and being influenced by their wheedling stories, took some other route westward and never came to Michigan. Detroit at that time was the rendezvous for all emigrants who came west by the lake. Here they stopped to get their outfit, if they had come without it; here they made preparations, got needed supplies, and started out to begin anew in the woods. There were some half-dozen not very imposing brick blocks, and no very grand buildings of any kind in Detroit at that time. There was not much that was very prepossessing about the place, perhaps more so because the muddy condition of the streets discounted largely on the whole town. The streets, although apparently impassable from this mud, were yet full of the stir and turmoil of business, mostly of teams passing and repassing. Conspicuous among these were the emigrant wagons, of various and nondescript kinds, sizes, and con- struction,-some with the rude canvas covering and some were open, some drawn by one yoke of oxen, some by two, and some by three. Occasionally horses were used. These wagons were loaded with boxes filled with household goods, the largest ones being placed at the bottom, . the next smaller on these, and so on to the smallest at the top. Then the various loose articles of the household paraphernalia were stuck or fastened here and there upon or between the boxes, looking as if they had budded, blossomed, and branched out from the load. The sturdy emigrant and his resolute wife were seated in front on the load, and cropping out here and there on the boxes behind there were bon- nets and little hoods, caps and curly heads, and occasionally following

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History of Kalamazoo county, Michigan, Part 21

Author: Durant, Samuel W. comp Publication date: 1880 Publisher: Philadelphia. Everts & Abbott Number of Pages: 761

Author: Durant, Samuel W. comp
Publication date: 1880
Publisher: Philadelphia. Everts & Abbott
Number of Pages: 761